WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Ponderosa Stomp at Lincoln Center NYC

Don't even think of missing the one and only Ponderosa Stomp next week. It's the swingin'-est, funkiest, rockin'-est musical entertainment show ever put on anywhere at anytime. It's only great. And it's blasting into New York City for three crazed nights of soul, rockabilly and swamp pop and most of it will fly out over the WFMU airwaves!

For the uninitiated, in the past decade the Stomp has been responsible for celebrating the legacies and careers of the unsung heroes of rock & roll, soul, garage, swamp pop and the unnameable (i.e.: Legendary Stardust Cowboy). What began as a hobby for organizer Dr. Ike Padnos and his Mystic Knights of the Mau Mau has exploded into a multi-faceted musical, cultural and educational juggernaut. And it's a hell of a lot of fun. This ain't no schlub oldies show--this is the real deal. If you can, see this in person. As a backup plan you can listen to most of it on the radio. In either event, prepare to have your world rocked.

Here's what you need to know:

July 16th (Midsummer Night's Swing):
Ponderosa Stomp: The Get Down
(broadcast live on Music To Spazz By Thursday July 16th 7-11pm)

* William Bell - a principal architect of the Stax/Volt sound.
* The Bobbettes – girl group known as the ‘Harlem Queens’ known for their hit, “Mr Lee”
* Bo-Keys - authentic, greasy Memphis soul stew w/ Stax Records stars
* Harvey Scales - a hard-hitting soul man, writer of  "Disco Lady" and “Love-i-tus”

July 17th (Midsummer Night's Swing):
Ponderosa Stomp: Best Dance In Town
(to be aired on Music To Spazz By Thursday July 30th 8-11pm)

* Joe Clay - New Orleans’ proto-rockabilly genius, appeared with Elvis
* The Collins Kids – 50’s TV faves, this brother/sister duo features double neck guitar pyrotechnics
* Deke Dickerson & The Eccofonics - the nitro-charged country and rockabilly specialists
* Carl Mann - Sun Records artist had his first hit with Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa”

prunella scales

Prunella Scales.  What more do I have to say?  The stage name alone offers up  a certain oddity and eccentricity that her physical appearance continues to suggest.  I fell in love with her portrayal of Sybil Fawlty, the off color and regal proprietress of the most ill-managed guest house in the history of England.  Her economy of manner, so precise and suggestive, was a wonderful foil to the physical stammerings and mishaps of Basil Fawlty.
     Sunday night I watched Prunella in a remarkably un-Sybil role in a new Masterpiece Mystery: Miss Marple.  The Jane Marple stories have a fair dose of stereotypes, quite purposely placed by Agatha Christie to illustrate her views on the universalness of evil.  Prunella Scales played a widow, Mrs Mackenzie, whose husband was purportedly killed by the rival family patriarch, many years ago.  Now in a sanatorium, Mrs. Mackenzie recounts how she had schooled her children in a nightly prayer to seek revenge on this robber baron, and pledge their filial devotion to this adult quest. 
     The first Miss Marple story was written in 1930 England, where conventional villages dotted the green landscape, city life offering a sharp contrast to these country ways.  A small town aging spinster was invisible and powerless, a stereotype that Agatha Christie used as an asset to the stealth-like powers that amateur sleuth Jane Marple possessed.  Like Hercule Poirot, her fantastically odd Belgian detective, Jane Marple was an outsider whose abilities to observe without seeming important gave almost philosophical weight to her crime solving puzzles.  Unlike legendary minds like Poirot or Sherlock Holmes who constantly remind you of their inner crime solving genius, Miss Marple does not proselytize from the book of Jane.   She offers up idiosyncratic stories from the day to day life of her local villagers in St Mary Mead as proof of the inevitability of wrong doing.  Decades before a shift in feminist sensibilities would demand scrutiny of the multiple unpaid roles that women perform, the zing of an old lady solving a dastardly crime before the local constable could fathom its' dark belly was quite the satisfying finale.  Agatha Christie would go on to write 12 Miss Marple novels, making her one of the most beloved detectives.

     Masterpiece Mystery is running four new productions of Miss Marple stories this summer.  And of course the many fabulous Joan Hickson versions are available on DVD.  Caution: there will be graphic scenes of knitting.

The Kaufman's Dead (Long Live Andy)

Reading the account of Bryce's meeting, or near meeting, or fictive meeting with Andy Kaufman in Weird NJ (the story's not online, unfortunately, you have to buy the hard copy) just reminded me of the genius of Kaufman's hoaxes. Most people who read the story of the press conference Bryce was invited to in a New Jersey hotel room were probably left thinking Kaufman wasn't really there - and most people do seem to think he's dead. But even if it wasn't a hoax of Kaufmanesque proportions, it was a good one.

Or not. Whatever. The point is just that it got me thinking about Kaufman's genius. What was so great about him, throughout his career, was that he was a comedian who didn't make jokes. He pulled stunts, he talked in funny voices, but he pretty much never made a joke. His career wrestling women was without doubt his greatest non-gag.

So I was all the more happy then when I found out that My Breakfast With Blassie was coming out on DVD. Spinning off My Dinner With Andre, Andy's 70-minute breakfast encounter with wrestling champion Fred Blassie is hilariously mundane. The pair meet at a Sambo's in LA, Kaufman in a neck brace after his recent run-in with Randy Savage. The younger fighter shows nothing but respect for the "champeen." He stops to say grace before touching his pancakes. They discuss hand-shaking and hand-washing at length. When there aren't any jokes, everything becomes funny.

Which is what's so brilliant, and eventually I need to say spoiler alert here I guess, but this is why Andy Kaufman was, is, the best comedian. There's no way to read him. There's no way to tell if Blassie, or the women at the table next to them who Kaufman alternately insults and tries to pick up, are in on the joke. And that's the joke. The funny, funny joke.

The DVD includes a lengthy unedited reel from the shoot which reveals that, of course, but not, but you can't tell, but you don't know what to believe, that this breakfast wasn't shot in real time, that it wasn't unscripted. It was a hoax. Of course it was, because the world couldn't really accommodate Andy Kaufman. He had to make room for himself for the short time he was here. Unless he still is. I'm not sure. Ask Bryce.

Finally some MJ Memorabilia worth paying for

Yes, thanks to Ebay you can now own an official Michael Jackson Memorial Service NOTIFICATION EMAIL. Free shipping! (photo below, since Ebay already removed the listing)

(via Ethan Persoff)

In related memorabilia, Neverland Turtle Train.

Trio Pied de Poule - Café noir (video)

Recently, I stumbled upon this great video of Trio Pied de Poule singing about black coffee.

YouTube: [link]

There doesn't seem to be much about these girls on the Internets, but a little more information can be found here.

WFMU/Barbes Cumbia night TONIGHT at The Bell House w/ DJ Rob W

<--Los Destellos, featured on the Barbés Records compilation The Roots of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru

The worldwide cumbia resurgence is overflowing the WFMU bin, with records focusing on old and new. Check out Soundway's Panama! 2: Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical & Calypso Funk On The Isthmus 1967-77 (pop-up), Lucas Luisao's "Bounty Caderas" (pop-up) off Vibration Sound's Nuevacumbia - Le Nouveau Son De Buenos Aires, and Uproot Andy vs. ODB (pop-up) from DJ/Rupture's Mudd Up podcast. More Chicha from Beware of the Blog here.

So it seems fitting that WFMU is joining forces with Barbés Records tonight for an evening of Cumbia at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Rob Weisberg of Transpacific Sound Paradise will be DJ-ing in between sets by Very Be Careful (Los Angeles) and Chicha Libre (Brooklyn). The event won't be broadcast live, so make your way out to The Bell House!

More info about the music from WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Listen to Very Be Careful spinning records and chatting live with DJ/Rupture on Mudd Up last year.

Listen to Chicha Libre's "Six_Pieds Sous Terre" (mp3) from ¡Sonido Amazonico! (Barbés Records 2008)

Listen to DJ Rob W's spotlight on Zizek, an Argentinian collective who just released ZZK Vol: 2, a killer follow-up to last year's Cumbia Digital vol. 1. (This show also featured a great live set from Cordero!).

If you like what you hear, hope to see you tonight!

Cumbia! Cumbia! With VERY BE CAREFUL & CHICHA LIBRE
Sunday July 5th, 8:00pm
@ The Bell House [149 7th Street, Brooklyn, NY (map)]
Adv. Tickets:  www.thebellhouseny.com

Pipe Dreams (1938)

No matter who you are, you just have to appreciate old cartoons that either endorse smoking or at least present it in what today would be considered the most irresponsible light possible. The drawings get especially funny in this one around 2:12. Hey bub, you got an irresponsible light? A small handful of other smoking cartoons after the jump.

After the Rain

It rained on Thursday night.

The temperature had been in the high 80s to low 90s all week, which to a Brit is rather like standing in a satanic sauna fuelled by hot mildew. We don’t do dry heat.

Work was slow yet steady up at Dave interspersed with lashing of Hibiscus tea and gallons of Evian. I was tired, hot and grumpy.

I kept having these weird dreams about my former job. These were confused, unfathomable images and although my life is good, I felt flat and restless.

Little Pixies Barked

Here comes your kid.

July 4th pin-up: hot fox diplomacy

Current occupation: Governor of Alaska
Age: 45
Residence: Wasilla, Alaska

Little-known public official interviewed in the August 2009 issue of Runner's World magazine:

"I feel so crappy if I go more than a few days without running. I have to run. No matter how rotten I feel before or during a run, it's always worth it to me afterwards. Sweat is my sanity. A great frustration I had during the campaign was when the McCain staff wouldn't carve out time for me to go for a run. The days never went as well if I couldn't get out there and sweat. ...

"I went for a run at John McCain's ranch a couple of days before the debate with Joe Biden. My favorite thing in the world is to run on hot, dusty roads. I don't get enough of that in Alaska. So I was in heaven and there were plenty of hills so I knew my thighs were going to just throb and my lungs were going to burn and that's what I crave."

Palin intends to continue running because she feels a commitment.

Papa's Got a Brand New Patriotic Bag (MP3s)

Happy Independence Day.

James Brown & The Famous Flames  -  America Is My Home Pt. 1  (3:20)

James Brown & The Famous Flames  -  America Is My Home Pt. 2  (3:28)

"You all know me. You know what I do for a living."

Hello, Chris T. here. I'll be filing in tonight for Shut Up, Weirdo in the old Aerial View time-slot, 6 - 7 PM. What's the topic? "Chris T'.s Bargain Bin". With our current economic crisis on everyone's mind, my wife Janet and I will help you save a few bucks while having a few yucks...

Man, how often in life do you get to use the word "yucks"?

I'd also like to get just one person to re-enact the greatest scene from the greatest Summer movie of all, the Indianapolis speech from JAWS. I'll provide the music and sound effects, you channel your inner Captain Quint. Here's the speech:

Aboard the Orca:

Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfus) - "You were on the Indianapolis?"

Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) - "What happened?"

Quint (Robert Shaw) - "Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We'd just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes.

Didn't see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin' by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away.

Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces.

You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Bosun's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist.

At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol' fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.

Anyway, we delivered the bomb."

Climax Golden Twins - Tues July 7th

Coming up on The Antique Phonograph Music Program on Tues July 7 will be Rob Millis and Jeffery Taylor aka Climax Golden Twins.

They will discuss their musical output, their Dust to Digital rare international 78 series "Victrola Favorites," and current release "Take Me to the Water: Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography 1890-1950."

Mac and Climax Golden Twins will play records and talk about the dogged pursuit of 78s. Tune in, turn on and listen to them drop steel needles.

Also be sure to check out this recent live set by Climax Golden Twins (via Issue Project Room & Free Music Archive).

Click here to subscribe to the Antique Phonograph Music Program's podcast via iTunes.

Exploring America's Indigenous Internment/Concentration Camps

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I've spent countless posts on my blog laughing at "believers" and pointing out flaws in the arguments of those who are deeply involved in the notion of shadow governments, cover-ups, and general issues of seemingly unexplainable events. But I do love to get in my car and drive to weird places, so when I heard about the plethora of potential internment/concentration camps within Los Angeles county, I decided I would go scope them out to see if any of the claims made by theorists were valid.

A little background information: According to a website called Freedom Files (URL), "There are over 600 prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive prisoners. They are all staffed and surrounded by full-time guards, but they are all empty. These camps are operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) should Martial Law need to be implemented in the United States." Apparently these camps are part of a plan called Rex 84 (short for Readiness Exercise 1984), under which the government's ability to detain large numbers of American citizens can be tested. According to Wikipedia, "The exercise anticipated civil disturbances, major demonstrations and strikes that would affect continuity of government and/or resource mobilization. To fight subversive activities, there was authorization for the military to implement government ordered movements of civilian populations at state and regional levels, the arrest of certain unidentified segments of the population, and the imposition of martial law." In other words, if a disaster were to strike, or massive rioting, or an huge and sudden influx of illegal aliens, FEMA has the capacity and the ability to detain up to hundreds of thousands of individuals at a time and hold them indefinitely without trial.

So, I figured...why not see if these places even exist! Most conspiracy theory websites, I imagine, operate under the premise that people reading conspiracy theory/shadow government websites are lazy pieces of shit who won't actually get up off their asses and check the validity of what they're reading. Sure, that's a gross stereotype I'm making about the types of people I think buy into such theories, but as a born skeptic I felt it was my duty to get out of the apartment and see firsthand just what these "internment camps" looked like.

Highlights from Wildwood, N.J. - 1994

A Bunch Of Bleeping Nonsense

"Bleeping" as in "I've got a bunch of new bands for you today that use lots of insane bleepy sounds", not "bleeping" as in "fucking".  This isn't the fucking radio, why would I censor the headline?

All the same, I oughtta warn ya that the video on the right is a bit NSFW.  Both are from Computer Jesus Refrigerator, a San Antonio based duo of grind/noise/gore/bleeping nonsense.  I've been enjoying their songs for months now, but recently noticed that the band has posted a whole slew of awesome music videos on their Myspace.

Kania Tieffer was brought to my attention by her new CD in the FMU new bin, alongside a few other releases from the very nutty French label Le Vilain Chien.  Hyper, ADDified, amateurish ditties reminiscent of Felix Kubin, OCDJ, and a cat walking across a keyboard.

Kania Tieffer - Parc à Thèmes

El G has released approximately 9999,999,999 tapes and CDRs over the years.  Often noisy but with definite pop sensibilities.  The below MP3 is from the "Armelle" 7", also out on Le Vilain Chien.  Really beautiful song, worthy of Radiohead.  Check the official website.

El G - Armelle

Rainbow Arabia sounds pretty exotic and possibly foreign, but it's just some hyper-musically-educated white folk from Cali.  Not that there's anything wrong with white folk.  Check the live set with Trent.  I think they're touring with Gang Gang Dance soon.  Apparently they're big or something.

Rainbow Arabia - Holiday In Congo

Patent Quiz

After the unfortunate passing of Michael, everything from His favorite pill combos, to His child custody problems, to His music publishing issues, to His preferred brand of toothpaste have been dismembered, torn, and tossed into the final press to eek out any remaining dregs of data for the (us?) media vultures.

During this whole circus, you may have discovered that the guy from Toto actually wrote "Human Nature" (thanks Doron). Or perhaps you came across Michael's patent for "Method and means for creating anti-gravity illusion" (thanks Listener Colin & Ron) - PDF here, diagram below.

My buddy Dennis also sent along a few other patent documents filed by notable folks: images are below the jump, see if you can put a name to the images.

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Bobb Trimble and the Flying Spiders live at WFMU (mp3's)

<-- Bobb Trimble (r) with Gary War on guitar and Nick Branigan on drums. Along with Kris Thompson on bass and Karina DaCosta on vox, you've got The Flying Spiders, photographed here in the WFMU live room (by Tiffany Camhi)

In his early 20s, Bobb Trimble self-released two surreal psychedelic folk albums: "Iron Curtain Innocence" (1980) and "Harvest of Dreams" (1982). He played a handful of shows around the local Worcester, MA area with teenage backing bands The Kidds and The Crippled Dog Band, then disappeared. Meanwhile, his recordings lived on as sought-after collector's items, and inspired countless contemporary artists like Ariel Pink and Gary War. In 2007, Secretly Canadian reissued both Bobb Trimble albums, inspiring Bobb Trimble's Flying Spiders to come together for a series of special shows, including the Homegrown psychedelic music festival taking place this July in Boston. Backed by the Flying Spiders, Bobb Trimble made his NYC-area debut last Thursday at the Rose Live Bar, and it was quite an event (you can read more about it at Vanity Fair). The next day, they stopped by WFMU to pre-tape a live set that aired on yesterday's episode of Talk's Cheap.

The set included a bunch of classic songs from Bobb's two official albums, but it also included four songs that had never been released stateside. We're psyched to be able to share live versions of "Live Wire, Live Wire", "The Camel Song", "Angel Eyes," and "Undercovers Man" (mp3's all of 'em) here on the Free Music Archive.

Wild Oates: A Conversation With Warren Oates' Biographer

          

Writer Susan Compo recently authored an enormously entertaining Warren Oates biography and Oates fans who have not yet read the book can look forward to it with great anticipation.  For my money, Warren Oates: A Wild Life is the finest biography since 1998 when Ronnie Pugh's Ernest Tubb biography hit the shelves.  The book offers a richly-detailed and definitive portrait of Oates' intriguing life and career and upon finishing it, I decided it might be interesting to talk to the author about Warren Oates and how she came to write the story of his life.  I'd like to thank Susan for sharing several unpublished Oates photos (including above right, showing Oates in makeup for The Brink's Job) and for indulging me while I fumbled through my Brian Lamb impersonation.

Oates died of a heart attack in 1982, but if he were still with us he'd celebrate his 81st birthday on July 5.

Greg:  Let's start things off with a question about the title of your book, Warren Oates: A Wild Life.  Who chose that title?

Susan Compo:  The publisher, as happens sometimes in the book world.  I had Wild Oates, but they just didn't go for that.

(NOTE: I didn't want to see a good title go to waste, so I borrowed it for this post).

Don Dohler Double Feature – The Alien Factor and Fiend

The Alien Factor (1978) is so archetypal of 70s ultra-low-budget sci-fi/horror that it almost seems like a SCTV parody of the genre. Loaded with awkward blocking and long snatches of blandly delivered expositional dialogue, its strength is in its simple charms: a few good ideas, some amusing characters, and enough money-shot visuals to inspire 100 great screen captures. These folks clearly worked hard on the monsters—one of which has anatomically built-in platform heels—and in general, your entertainment will come from the earnest and colorful visual effects and primitive, in-camera and stop-motion techniques. Make no mistake, The Alien Factor is eyeball-pleasin'; the title sequence alone should be canonized as some kind of holy representation of 70s goodness. If I seem to disparage The Alien Factor, it's only because Dohler's next feature goes straight to the heart of my aesthetic nerve centre. 

Everything that The Alien Factor may lack in sophistication is more than made up for by director Don Dohler's next movie, Fiend (aka Deadly Neighbor, 1980), a genuinely creepy, witty and highly original living-dead scenario. In the film, a mysterious alien force, an ethereal red-glowing flying thing, for reasons unknown to us, reanimates (or possesses) a buried corpse, and the combo adds up to one nasty character, an intense sadist named Mr. Longfellow. The trajectory is quite unpredictable, as our zombie pal takes over an empty house, opens a music school (!), and generally irritates his neighbors (whose somewhat banal interactions also provide their own amusing little subplot, especially as the length of the wife's hair keeps changing from scene to scene.) And oh yes, there's Longfellow's murder/sustenance rituals, which also consist of shouting and stabbing at photographs of his victims (and a lot of black candles.)

After Alien Factor, Dohler must have learned a lot about shot framing, suspenseful editing, and economy of dialogue, such that Fiend is elevated from being merely a visually charming, colorful oddity like its predecessor, to being an aggressively weird and disquieting horror tale. I'd also be remiss not to mention that both of these films feature a melodic, burbling synthesizer score (The Alien Factor by Kenneth Walker; Fiend by Paul Woznicki), so well done and so evocative of the time as to give me a super-warm fuzzy. See the My Castle of Quiet blog for a downloadable cinelogue audio excerpt from Fiend.

It's obvious that despite challenges of budget, Dohler and his crew worked hard to try and make good, entertaining movies, and, at least with Fiend, came pretty close to some metaphysical horror fan's ideal. Dohler is something of a legend, especially in his native Baltimore, and now I see why. Many thanks to James for the loan of the two-in-one DVD (released 2005), and for insisting that we give these bent pictures an eyeball.

Another Don Dohler film, Galaxy Invader, can be viewed or downloaded for free here via archive.org. There's also a well-reviewed and relatively new Dohler documentary, released on DVD earlier this year.